Poll of Delhi Men: What Causes Rape

A group of men shouted slogans during a demonstration in Amritsar, Punjab, Jan. 3.

A month ago, a young Indian woman died in a Singapore hospital from injuries sustained in a brutal attack on a bus in New Delhi. The woman had been raped and tortured by a group of men out for what police described as a “joyride.”

In the wake of the assault, which set off a national discussion on sexual violence against women in India, male politicians suggested a range of reasons for such attacks.

Explanations included short skirts and Westernization (prior to the attack, one politician had suggested the consumption of chow mein and pizza was to blame), as well as Bollywood and dating . (The frequent focus on women’s behavior as a cause of rape is of course not restricted to India.) After voicing these opinions, many of these leaders came in for flak, including most recently from Sonia Gandhi.

Still, we wondered if these were viewpoints that many Indian men share, so we conducted our own (admittedly unscientific) survey of 100 men in different parts of Delhi and Noida. We polled men in different income groups and professions, from rickshaw-pullers to a momo-seller and property dealer, as well as a government employee and army colonel. Our respondents ranged in monthly income from a few thousand rupees to 100,000 rupees ($1,850).

And while we asked just the one question (see below), and offered a choice of five responses, we made sure to vary the order in which the answers were offered each time we asked the question.

Unlike many politicians, the vast majority of the men we questioned – over two-thirds — blamed poor law enforcement and policing, as well as a lack of respect for women for rape. Of the 100 men polled, 34 blamed gaps in policing and law enforcement, while 33 said lack of respect was the main culprit and that Indians should “change their thinking.”

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“Police should catch hold of the guys who are roaming around. Police should remain on duty,” said an ATM security guard. “I also feel like roaming the market but I don’t because something could happen at any time.”

A dry-cleaner recommended capital punishment and swifter prosecution. “Hang a rapist. Nobody will dare repeat this again. But cases in India drag on for decades. Where is the deterrent?”

A student in South Delhi said “lack of respect” was too mild a way of putting it, adding that the problem is that India has “a patriarchal societal structure or conception, where the non-male is less than a person.”

A 48-year-old army colonel said, “In India, men have always felt women are a commodity to be used. Until and unless this mindset does not change, we cannot progress any further.”

A few men (three) said that lack of respect and poor law enforcement were to blame in equal measure, declining to give one more importance than the other.

However, more than a quarter of respondents (26) blamed Western influences for rape. They saw this as women wearing skimpy clothing, smoking, drinking, and going out at night.

A driver in East Delhi explained, “A man thinks she is smoking, so she must like to drink. If she likes to drink she must be open to sexual activity. She may be 200% good but people will think wrong things,” he said, adding that women’s behavior was being influenced by foreigners who visit or live in India.

A third man, who works for a private firm, blamed the “Western MNC culture.”

Two men who chose “other” also appeared to hold women responsible for rape although they didn’t blame Western culture. One, a 22-year-old who works for a private firm, blamed Bollywood for encouraging women to abandon more demure clothing for “net [stockings] and miniskirt.” “When women were wearing sari and salwar kameez, a man could control himself,” he said as he ate lunch in central Delhi.

We conducted our survey at different times. When we pooled our responses we noticed something odd. Our questioners – there were five, three women and two men, with each of us putting the question to 20 men – appeared to be getting very different responses depending on their gender.

Very few men told the three women (who all happened, by coincidence, to be wearing jeans) that “Western influences” are causing rape. Instead, the majority of responses when women asked the question were “poor law enforcement” (23 of 34 responses in this category) and “lack of respect for women” (24 responses of the 31 in this category.)

But the two men conducting the survey were far more frequently told that “Western influences” (19 of the 26 responses in this category) were the reason rapes were occurring, which makes us wonder what the results would have been if all our questioners had been men.

If you wish to participate in an online version of this survey, vote here.

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